Many watching the UCLA program have been asking the same thing. The Bruins (4-5, 2-4 Pac-12) have lost back-to-back games and need to win two of their last three to earn bowl eligibility. Commitments are fleeing. Some fans are fundraising to fly a banner encouraging coaching and administrative changes.

But what may look like a program in decline from the outside is actually a program worth saving, Jones said.

“A lot of recruits like to go to a program that’s already winning but don’t want to help a program win,” he said. “No disrespect to them, but they want to go jump on a bandwagon. That’s what they can do, but I’m going to stay true to the ones that were there before I blew up with offers and try to turn things around.”

In flux?

The Mansfield, Texas, native is one of UCLA’s remaining 19 known commitments for the class of 2018. He already lost three fellow defensive backs, Ken Montgomery and Kendrick Torain, a pair of cornerbacks from Tampa, Fla., and Dayven Coleman, a safety from Mesquite, Texas. Aaron McDonald, an offensive tackle from Northern California, backed out Sunday, six days after junior college offensive lineman Jason Dickson started the barrage of decommits on Oct. 30.

While 17-year-old boys changing their minds is nothing new in recruiting, the succession of decommits caught the eye of Brandon Huffman, national director of college football recruiting for Scout.

“I would definitely say it looks concerning,” Huffman said. “It looks like a program in flux.”

It’s not just the number of decommits, but it’s who they are. McDonald was one of UCLA’s first commits and told Huffman about a month ago that he was still solid on the Bruins. Possible concerns about the stability of the UCLA coaching staff may have emerged, Huffman said. Dickson, a Corona native, was expected to challenge for playing time immediately after coming from Diablo Valley College.

The Bruins had five offensive line commits by last July. Two are gone. One, Marco Brewer, was charged with rape this summer and is not playing high school football in Oregon. The final two, Trey Statford and Chris Bleich, are still taking official visits.

“From an appearance standpoint, it looks bad to have two decommits in one week let alone five,” Huffman said. “But when you’re losing a few of them that are actually considered to be key parts of this class, I think that definitely adds more weight to this is something to be concerned about.”

The trio of decommited defensive backs won’t ultimately threaten the longtime success of the recruiting class, Huffman said. They were all three-star prospects from out of state and UCLA already brought in five promising defensive backs last year.

UCLA has three defensive backs in its 2018 class, all four-star recruits. Along with Jones, the Bruins have St. John Bosco safety Stephan Blaylock and Olaijah Griffin, who was a recruiting coup for the Bruins after USC also courted the Mission Viejo cornerback.

While Blaylock was “shocked” to see the string of decommits, he understands that it’s part of process. He said defensive backs coach Demetrice Martin spoke to him about having to cut down the recruiting class and one of the latest St. John Bosco Braves to become a Bruin understood.

“He said we had to let some guys go to actually see who’s really committed,” Blaylock said. “So I was like, ‘OK, that’s fine with me, you’re trying to point out the ones that are actually trying to go here.’”

Coaches are not allowed to comment on specific recruits publicly, but Coach Jim Mora said the process is “going really well,” despite the team’s recent results.

Rebuild

Blaylock remains loyal to UCLA for a chance to help rebuild the Bruins after last year’s 4-8 season and this year’s inconsistency. He sees fellow Bosco alumnus Jaleel Wadood patrolling the defensive backfield in blue and gold and wants to do the same.

“I’m trying to do it how Jaleel did when he came up there,” Blaylock said. “Rebuild this and bring it back to what it should be.”

When Wadood was entering UCLA in 2014, the Bruins were coming off the first of back-to-back 10-win seasons. Now they’ve won just nine of their past 16 games going back to Nov. 14, 2015 against Washington State.

Whispers about Mora’s job security amid the recent slide that’s coincided with a rash of injuries don’t faze the coach. They do, however, reach potential recruits.

“I’m worried about that, I really don’t want a coaching change,” Jones said. “I don’t want to go in, play for a coach that didn’t recruit me, doesn’t know anything about me. I like Jim Mora, I want to play for Jim Mora.”

Jones believes in Mora’s ability to rally the team after losses and keep it together through difficult times.

This past week would qualify as one of those times. Last Friday, the Bruins lost a commitment and got crushed by Utah in Salt Lake City while their leading receiver suffered a season-ending knee injury. On Saturday, another commit bailed. At around noon on Sunday, linebacker Breland Brandt tweeted a photo of a text message exchange in which a staff member, who was not a coach, said the redshirt freshman linebacker “quit the team” when he was forced to medically retire after sustaining a fourth concussion in three years. Seven hours later, another recruit was out.

The next day, Mora addressed the text message exchange, calling it “a poor choice of words” that was “not really a part of what we do or how we talk.” He extended best wishes to Brandt as he continues as a student at UCLA.

Then the conversation turned to UCLA’s hopes to salvage its season with a win against Arizona State on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, where the Bruins are undefeated this year. UCLA, despite a spate of injuries remains dedicated to earning a bowl bid and that’s the program Jones wants to join.

“Wins and losses aren’t big in my recruiting process, but how you take wins and losses are big in my recruiting process,” Jones said. “We take a lot of losses, but the thing I can say is when we take a loss, we come back the next game like the loss never happened.”

Thuc Nhi Nguyen has covered UCLA for the Southern California News Group since 2016. A proud Seattle native, she majored in journalism and mathematics at the University of Washington. She likes graphs, animated GIFs and superheroes.

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